It looks like the Halifax Mooseheads will take at least one step toward resolving their surplus of over-age players in the coming days.

Sources confirmed there is a deal in place to send forward Luca Ciampini to the Baie-Comeau Drakkar on Friday for a 2015 second-round pick. Transactions cannot be made official until Friday morning when the summer trade period opens.

“We don’t comment on any trade talks outside of those trade windows so there’s nothing really to talk about,” said Mooseheads general manager Cam Russell.

Ciampini was originally drafted second overall by the Mooseheads in 2010 and spent four seasons in Halifax. He had 59 goals and 107 assists in 235 regular season games, including 71 points in 65 games during his career year in 2012-13.

The Montreal native will be reunited with his former midget AAA linemate Frederic Gamelin, who was picked fifth overall by the Drakkar in the 2010 draft.

Ciampini’s departure means the Mooseheads are now down to four players vying for the three 20-year-old positions. One of those spots is already committed to forward Philippe Gadoury, while at least one of the others will go to a defenceman.

Austyn Hardie and Jesse Lussier are candidates to fill one or perhaps both of those blueline openings, while MacKenzie Weegar is still technically part of the equation but is all but guaranteed to be playing professionally next season. The Florida Panthers drafted him in the seventh round last year and it’s believed their intention is to sign him this summer and assign him to one of their minor league affiliates. Forward Andrew Ryan is the other player in the mix for an over-age job.

“We don’t have to settle it right away because we could always wait until training camp,” Russell said.

“We’ve done that before. But if there are ways to resolve it now that make sense for us, we’ll do it. We still have plenty of options for how we can approach it so we’ll take our time, like we always do with these decisions.”

Russell lamented that he had to trade away any of those players in the first place. Ciampini and Ryan have already given the Mooseheads four years of service and Hardie has been in Halifax for three seasons. All three of those players were part of the 2013 Memorial Cup championship roster. Lussier and Gadoury arrived last year but made significant contributions.

“In a perfect world we could keep four, or even five, but we obviously know that’s not possible,” Russell said.

“It’s not the first time we’ve had to make tough decisions about our 20-year-olds and we’re not the only team that has to do it again this year. You could probably find a similar situation on just about every other roster.

“They’re quality guys who have done a lot for us over the years and we hate to have to see some of them go.”

The QMJHL draft is on Saturday in Sherbrooke, Que. Russell said he does not foresee moving any of his other roster players on the weekend.

“We really like the group of players we have coming back and we also like the young kids we have coming up,” Russell said.

“I don’t expect to be all that busy with trades at the draft. I think we’re in pretty good shape.”